How to Save a Life
by littleshadows
Summary: Svea Oxenstierna is a misfit with no friends and a dysfunctional family. Tiina Vainamoinen is popular, has a wonderful homelife, and is perfectly happy. When the two are paired up for a school project, they quickly become friends. As they grow closer and closer, will their friendship blossom into something more? fem!Sweden/fem!Finland, High School AU. Much better than the summary.


**Edit: So, when I uploaded this, I was being my usual scatterbrained self and forgot to write an author's note. Yeah, nice one, self. Anyway, this is my first story on here, something I'm pretty excited about. I owe a _huge_ thank you to curse of ondine, who is a kickass beta. **

A teenage girl sits in her bedroom, hugging her knees and listening to the sounds of angry screaming, glass breaking, and punches being thrown.

Her name is Svea Oxenstierna, she's sixteen years old, and she's grown used to the sounds she's currently hearing. After all, it's pretty much a nightly occurrence at her house.

Svea had spent the past thirty minutes or so trying to do her homework, but to no avail. The argument going on downstairs made it hard for her to concentrate, and so she'd given up. It wasn't like it mattered, anyway; the paper she'd been writing wasn't due for two more days, and she'd done her other work in study hall.

Closing her laptop and getting off of her bed, she goes and stands in front of the mirror that hangs over her dresser. She is wearing her favorite, blue and white striped pajamas. There are bags under her sea green eyes, most likely from a lack of sleep. Her hair still looks nice, though that's only because she tries her best to take good care of it. _I look like my Mom, _she observes silently.

It's around midnight, and Svea has school the next morning, so she turns out the light and crawls into her twin bed, falling into a restless sleep.

At around four AM- or maybe it's five, she isn't really quite sure- there's a loud knock on her door, followed by her mother's voice, which was once lovely but had been ruined years ago by all the chain smoking she does.

"Sve, open the door for Momma." She doesn't sound angry or upset, but Svea's still hesitant to do so. After a few moments, she speaks again, her voice slurring from the amount of alcohol she had no doubt consumed that night.

"C'mon honey, open up."

Svea caves in and gets out of bed, unlocks the door, and opens it to reveal her mother standing there, clad in an old Rolling Stones t-shirt and her underwear. The woman gives her daughter a small smile and stumbles towards the bed, which she promptly flops down onto, sprawling out and making it so that Svea can't get back in bed. Sighing, she takes one of the pillows off and manages to pull the comforter out from under her mother without bothering her.

After setting up her makeshift bed on the floor, Svea lays down once again.

She doesn't get anymore sleep that night.

* * *

The early October air is brisk and chilly as Tiina Vainamoinen walks to school alongside her best friend, Emilia Steilsson. The Finnish girl is suddenly regretting the fact that she didn't wear something heavier than the light pink jacket she's got on, but it's too late to do anything about it.

Emilia is ranting about some boy in their year who had pissed her off, but Tiina doesn't really pay attention. Instead, her focus is on the route they're taking to school, and how beautiful it is. Trees line the sidewalk, and their leaves are an assortment of reds, golds, and oranges. She thinks about how she'd like to draw this scene sometime.

Her friend pulls her back down to reality. "Hey, you listening?"

"Huh?"

Emilia rolls her eyes, but it's easy to tell that she isn't really mad.

"I was saying that I can't figure out why Leon hasn't asked me out yet," she said, referring to the cute, but helplessly awkward boy who was her usual conversation partner in the Advanced French class that they had together.

"Maybe _you _should ask _him _out instead. He's probably too shy to do it himself."

"Hmmm. Maybe. I don't want to seem desperate, though."

"You, desperate for Leon? Why, I never thought of such a thing!" Tiina joked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Ha-ha, very funny."

They continue like that, cracking jokes and sharing little tibits of gossip until they reach their school. Their lockers are on opposite sides of the building, forcing the two teens to part ways.

At her locker, Tiina briefly chats with Eduard, another old friend of hers. They'd known each other since the fourth grade, and had been quite close ever since. Eventually, Eduard leaves to go talk to another friend of his, and Tiina is by herself. She grabs the books she'll need for the next few classes, and heads off to her first period, English. There's still about ten minutes before class starts, but she figures that she might as well go. There is one other person in the classroom, a girl with long blond hair sitting in the very back of the classroom. She's is slightly embarassed when she realizes that she can't remember this girl's name. Fortunately for her, she doesn't try to start a conversation, instead choosing to stare out the window.

Not having anything else to do, Tiina gets out the novel she's in the middle of and reads until the start of the period. When the bell does ring, she puts the book away with a slightly annoyed sigh. Class just _had _to start when she was getting to the good part.

A few minutes later, their English teacher, Mr. Kirkland, walks into the room.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone." He then proceeds to take attendence, before moving onto the lesson for that day.

"Now, today we're going to be talking about a project that you'll be doing for this class."

The majority of the students let out a collective groan. There were a few souls who seemed to be genuinely excited about this project, but not many.

"You will be assigned a partner, and the two of you will each be given a famous poet. You will have to research that poet's life and then give an oral presentation about it in front of the class. You'll also have to recite at least one of their poems during the presentation. Any questions?" Nobody raised their hand.

"Alright, then. Let's find out who our partners are, shall we?"

He slipped a pair of reading glasses on and produced a list from his desk.

"Erzsebet Hedervary and Gilbert Beilschmidt, you have Walt Whitman."

"Working on Edgar Allan Poe we have Emilia Steilsson and Leon Wang."

Tiina turned around and winked at her friend, who was smiling like mad.

Mr. Kirkland continued down the list for a while, not seeming to be going in any sort of order.

"And last but not least, Sylvia Plath has been assigned to Tiina Vainamoinen and Svea Oxenstierna."

**I know, this is kind of blah, but it will get more interesting, I can promise you that. Reviews make this girl very, very happy, so don't forget to leave one, and thanks a ton for reading!**


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